


The Games Of Love

by ssclassof56



Series: Then Live With Me and Be My Love [3]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Confessions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 10:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19316446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssclassof56/pseuds/ssclassof56
Summary: A follow-up to my storySeeking Sparks.





	The Games Of Love

A large orange cat jumped onto the sofa, announcing her presence with a high-pitched cry.

“Go away, Cheddar,” Illya said as he turned a page in the scrapbook. “I do not wish to be covered in your hair.”

The cat squeaked in reply and climbed onto the narrow strip of open lap. With a sigh, Illya carefully lowered his foot from where it rested on his knee and shifted the album onto the side table. After turning a few circles, Cheddar lay down, purring smugly. 

Illya ran a hand over the soft, ginger fur. “I need the lint brush,” he called.

Faustina stepped out onto the gangway that ran along the mezzanine and tossed the brush down to him. “Will our kids walk all over you too?” 

“The two things are completely dissimilar.” He eyed her chenille robe with a raised brow. “Are you almost ready?”

“Almost.”

He shook his head. “It is amazing how quickly you take clothes off, yet how long it takes you to put them on.”

“The two things are completely dissimilar. Besides, you’ve never minded the first part.”

He smiled up at her. “No, I have not.” 

Faustina returned to the bedroom, Illya to his perusal of the album. Cheddar sounded a shrill command, and he scratched her under the chin. 

Several minutes later, Faustina re-emerged wearing a colorful silk maxi dress with a matching scarf around her hair. 

“I can always tell when you have been shopping with April.”

She tilted her head to insert an earring. “Don’t you like it?”

“I like the top,” he said, admiring the plunging neckline.

Faustina wound down the spiral staircase. “I hope Zsuska brings the baby tonight.” 

“Why is Markus so special? You were not this fond of the others.”

“I don’t know. Maybe my maternal instincts are kicking in. Besides if I’m holding him, she and Jozsef can dance.”

“If they wanted to dance, perhaps they should not have had three children in three years.”

“I see your paternal instincts haven’t yet kicked in.”

“Not much.” His head snapped up, and Cheddar jumped off his lap in agitation. “You are not trying to tell me something, are you?” 

“No. Don’t look so panicked.” She picked up the lint brush from where he had set it on the coffee table. 

“I’ll do it,” he said, taking it from her, “otherwise we will not be going anywhere.” 

Faustina curled up beside him with the scrapbook, flipping pages while he worked the orange fur from his slacks.

“Aw, look, honey, our first date,” she drawled with exaggerated sentiment, smoothing a napkin mounted to the page with black photo corners. A gold violin encircled by the name Varga’s Restaurant embossed its surface.

“It was not a date. It was blackmail.”

“You say tomato…” She pointed to a photograph of him, mid-leap, brandishing a hatchet. “Are you going to do that dance tonight?”

“Perhaps.” At her sigh, he continued, “It will be fine.”

“Please come home with all your extremities,” she requested, patting his knee.

“Haven’t I always?”

“Well, there was that time wh—”

“I missed.”

“Barely.”

He shook the brush at her. “I was distracted. If you value my extremities, do not swing your skirt so high.”

“That’s why I’m wearing this.” She gestured to the flowing silk that enveloped her.

“It has its own distractions.”

She grinned and patted her cleavage. “Markus will be snuggling here.”

While he finished removing fur, she flipped another page. The frenetic pace of the stamping dance had been too much for the tiny camera. Illya’s hands, clapping his arms, thighs, and kicked-up feet, were a blur. Faustina hummed a Romani folk tune and tapped a foot as she looked at the photos. 

He put down the brush. “All right, out with it.”

“Hmmm?”

“You do have something to tell me.”

“Yes.” She loosened the corner of a large photo of him at the double bass and slid a set of folded pages from behind it. She handed it to him, meeting his eyes frankly. He could see a hint of trepidation in their depths.

He opened his Spark questionnaire and stared at it silently for a few moments, then looked back at her. “I have wondered when you would confess.”

“You knew,” she exclaimed and sank back against the sofa cushions.

He nodded. “It was unreasonably coincidental that our profiles were matched. And you seemed to know me too well for our short acquaintance. Either you were exceptionally intuitive or you had inside information.”

“I like to think it was a little of both.”

“I asked Napoleon what exactly he had done with this,” he said, tapping the questionnaire. “He told me he had passed it on to you.”

“He got distracted chatting up a new secretary, so he asked me to take yours down with mine.”

“And you read it.”

“Of course, I did,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “You play everything so close to the vest, and I was dying to know more about you. Good thing I was, as you had decided to bare your soul to Thrush’s computer, of all things.”

He frowned and shifted uncomfortably. “I had not. I was a little worse for drink and was carried away by scientific curiosity.”

She turned to face him, her grey eyes sparkling with amused affection. His lips curved into a lop-sided smile. “Maybe also a little lonely and restless,” he admitted.

She leaned closer. “Maybe a little?”

“A little bit, yes.” He closed the distance between them, and their lips met. The questionnaire dropped to the floor unnoticed.

“How did this become my confession?” he asked raggedly a few minutes later as she nuzzled his neck.

She chuckled. “Ok, I did it,” she said, her lips brushing his ear. “I kept your questionnaire. I wrote you a letter. It was a chance to draw you out, and I took it.”

“You lied.”

She sat back, grinning unrepentantly. “I omitted some pertinent details.”

“Hah.”

“So did you. Just how long have you known about this?”

He slanted his gaze at her. “Since a few months after that night.” 

“And you’ve omitted that detail for four years. What’s your excuse?”

“To borrow a phrase, we had the start of a beautiful friendship. I did not wish anything to spoil it.”

She took his hand and entwined her fingers with his.

“Oh, I was very angry at first,” he said. “You were away on a mission, but I planned to have it out when you returned.”

“But we didn’t.”

“We did not. Your absence outlasted my anger.”

She rested her head against his shoulder. “You missed me.”

He sighed. “Yes, but I did not call it that at the time. When you returned, I found I was disinclined to argue. You had your secret, I would have mine. An even playing field, or so I thought.”

“We did like our games.”

“We certainly did. I do not miss them, however. I prefer things this way.” He lifted her chin with his free hand and kissed her. “Anything else you would like to get off your chest?” he asked, his fingers slipping down to touch the pendant nestled in her décolletage.

She wrinkled her brow in consideration. “Not tonight.”

“Me neither.” He stood up and pulled her to her feet.

“Do you think our kids will be as adorable as Markus?” she asked as she straightened her head scarf at the wall mirror. 

“If they take after me, they will be.”

She laughed. “And if they take after me?”

“My incipient paternal instincts tell me they will be as adorable as they are clever,” he answered. He pushed the elevator call button. “And that, in comparison, our games will have been mere child’s play.”


End file.
